Amid a wider social justice reckoning, some scientists are calling for scrapping species names that honor people considered objectionable, including dictators and enslavers, or use offensive words. Others question whether such a monumental effort is worthwhile or even possible.
Although admittledly “better than Stalin” isn’t exactly a high bar, considering how spectacularly awful of a person he was. Some level of “excess brutality” is pretty much expected when it comes to Russia and Russian leaders, and Lenin doesn’t stand out particularly much in that regard, and he wasn’t a sadistic psychopath like Stalin and did genuinely seem to want to bring about a better society for everyone, instead of what they got after Stalin was through.